


GHOST TOWN ⇀ ( kevin keller ) ✓

by llunaetic_ao3



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: LGBTQ Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:36:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28835724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llunaetic_ao3/pseuds/llunaetic_ao3
Summary: GHOST TOWN- "take a walk in a ghost town, the sky is as black as crows."a lost boy finds his way back home, but at what costs?( riverdale )( kevin keller x male oc )
Relationships: Kevin Keller/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	1. GHOST TOWN

GHOST TOWN !  
°⋆∴☽°:۵≼ 

0\. Summary  
— the ghost of you !

— THE DISAPPEARANCE OF VINCENT AND JONATHAN KING WAS THE FIRST OF MANY UNFORTUNATE EVENTS. The brothers seemingly vanished without a trace, leaving behind a very broken group of middle school friends.

On December 9th, what was supposed to be a leisurely walk home from their favorite diner quickly turned into an unanswered cold case, with the idea of closure as a distant possibility. 

There had been no evidence, and no witnesses. The only thing they really knew for certain was that the boys left their booth at Pop's around six o'clock and somehow, as if they really became ghosts in this dark town, they weren't heard from again.

Family and friends were forced to believe the worst and so, two empty caskets that held a plethora questions were buried six feet under ground in the middle of a fenced off meadow, the twin headstones giving the flowers a sunken feel. The town moved on, trying to forget about that blemish on their welcome sign. As if no one felt the evil lurking in the shadows left by those two lost teens.

But their friends and family never forgot. They kept anticipating something would turn up. Waiting with bated breaths to see the King boys again.

And sadly, they only had to wait for two years before one of the boys made their first appearance.

OR IN WHICH  
a lost boy finds his way back home, but at what costs?

"I feel like I'm losing my sanity."

0\. casting  
— little lost boys !

°⋆∴☽°:۵≼  
DYLAN O'BRIEN !  
as  
JONATHAN 'JOHNNY' KING !

kind and curious soul,  
who broke you ?

°⋆∴☽°:۵≼  
GRANT GUSTIN !  
as  
VINCENT 'VINCE' KING !

a walk through the cold  
and it becomes a lot worse

0\. additional cast  
— voices in my head !

0\. brandon flynn as delia james 'dj'  
i. ian nelson as neil  
ii. asa butterfield as christian 'chris'  
iii. kian lawley as ethan  
iv. shelley hennig as andie

additional cast of riverdale  
as themselves !

"We'll never be those kids again."

DISCLAIMER:  
I don't own any characters, dialogue or plot that belong to the creators of riverdale. However I do own my own characters, dialogue and plots.

WARNING:  
THIS CONTAINS HARSH LANGUAGE, ILLNESSES, MENTAL HEALTH DISCUSSION AND RATHER GORY SCENES, IF YOU AS A READER CANNOT HANDLE THOSE THINGS IT'S MUCH ADVISED THAT YOU STOP READING HERE !


	2. ZERO

PROLOGUE  
°⋆∴☽°:۵≼

0\. the disappearing act !

— DECEMBER 9TH SEEMED LIKE IT WAS GOING TO BE A WONDERFULLY MEMORABLE DAY. But 'wonderful' didn't seem like the right word. 

After decorating the house for their favourite holiday, Jonathan and his older brother Vincent had met up with some friends at their favourite diner. They spent most of the day laughing and gossiping and chowing down on Pop's famous basket fries. 

It was perfect and innocent, just as their day's normally were.

Not one of them were aware of the shadows settling into their small town, too preoccupied with watching their redheaded friend laugh so hard his chocolate milkshake made a second appearance coming out his nose. Vincent was struggling to hold his own laughter down, while Jonathan was helping Kevin Keller dry his shirt in hopes that the milkshake stain wouldn't set because unfortunately, Kevin was sitting across from the poor Archie Andrews.

As Archie grabbed a few napkins to dry his nose, the beautiful blonde Betty Cooper turned her attention to the diner's window, gasping at the sight.

"It's snowing!"

All eyes went to the skies, watching the unique flakes tumble gracefully through the air. 

They simply enjoyed the moment in each other's presence. 

It was like the calm before the storm.

Before long, everyone had to leave. Betty claimed that her and her sister, Polly, were going to bake Christmas cookies while Archie jokingly offered to eat some. So the two made their way out into the cold.

Kevin left sometime after, saying he had to plan out his dad's Christmas gift before it was too late, knowing how forgetful he could be.

This left the brothers, Jonathan and Vincent. They finished off the fourth basket of fries that night, said goodbye to Pop, and stepped out of the diner, unknowing of what lie ahead.

A walk home was simple, they didn't live that far and the snow had only just started to fall, barely a layer on the ground.

Easy. Routine.

That's what it was supposed to be.

But when they didn't show up at home around 8:00 pm. The King's family started to get worried as the snow blew in more harshly than it had earlier.

12:00 am and still a no show.

After 1:00 am, there was so much snow that Rupert and Minnie King assumed their boys had stayed over at a friend's, not wanting to risk getting caught up in a storm.

But the next day they still hadn't stepped into the house. Minnie started calling everyone she knew, starting with the Coopers. Then Fred Andrews, Archie's father. Then Kevin, knowing that Jonathan was at the Keller's a lot.

No one had seen or heard from the boys since they left their booth at Pop's Chock'lit shoppe the previous night.

Everyone was keeping an eye out for them. The King's recruited a search team of Archie, Betty, Kevin and their families included. Even the more secluded member of their clique, Jughead Jones was on the hunt for the missing boys.

But after walking throughout the whole town, calling out their names. They began to lose hope, and within a few days, those smiling and innocent faces had become poster children with the phrases 'have you seen me?' and 'call this number if you have any information'.

Everywhere you went there was another poster. In grocery stores, the hospital, the diner and even scattered around the school halls (which Betty Cooper stuck up every month).

The group of friends had somehow fallen apart and gotten closer at the same time. This supposed abduction really took its toll on everyone's mental state. 

Jughead was quieter, Archie was angrier, Betty was anxious and Kevin was heartbroken.

They all missed their cheerful and fun loving best friends.

People wanted to know what happened. They wanted answers to their never ending list of questions.

Why were there no traces? No clues?  
Did they leave on their own accord?  
Did someone take them?  
Who took them?

'Who took them?' Seemed to be the biggest one.

But, a couple months passed by and the possibility of them still being alive was slim.

So Vincent and Jonathan King's family and friends had a funeral. Despite Betty and Kevin's protests, still optimistic that they would come back.

The snow was washed away by heavy rainfall for the next few weeks. As if the skies were trying to rid any traces of the two young boys.

The funeral affected them all differently.

Rupert and Minnie threw themselves into their work, trying to forget they even had children.

Archie tried that same tactic, trying to focus on one certain thing to try and keep his mind off the darkness of their town.

He ended up getting more into music. He'd mentioned it as an interest a while ago and Vincent has given him an old guitar. So he'd decided it'd be a good time to start learning the chords.

Jughead never took off his crowned whoopee cap. The memory of getting it on his birthday a few years prior was always fresh in his mind. 

He remembered catching Jonathan sneaking the wrapped box into his backpack the morning of.

Johnny never forgot a birthday and always respected that Jughead didn't like to make a big fuss about it. 

That wasn't gonna stop him from gift giving.

Betty still searched. 

Everytime she went out to refresh the missing posters, she'd glance at everything around her in hopes that one of those paper grins would really be there, and that the King brothers would step out of the shadows and hug her and say that they'd only gone out for while but they were back. 

Betty Cooper sighed disheartedly when her daydream disappeared with a blink. Just like they had.

Kevin spent a lot of his free time alone, sitting between the two headstones in the private meadow with a journal open on his lap. He'd bring flowers and then plop down and lean against the engraved marble that said 'here lies the spirit of Jonathan King'.

Then in that journal he'd write everything he knew and every possible idea about where his closest friends had gone. 

He wrote memories that he'd had of them, never wanting to forget. It wasn't the best, as longhand wasn't a friend of his, but he made it work.

He wrote about the time Jonathan made the group matching flower crowns, which wilted away within the day. 

He wrote about the time he snuck out to meet the King children, and they stargazed until well past midnight. 

Or the time his father was working late at the station, so Kevin had thanksgiving dinner with Jonathan and Vincent's family.

Oh, how he missed all those moments that he'd taken for granted.

Kevin's father, the sheriff, wouldn't like to admit it; but even he couldn't crack the case of his son's missing friends. It was an unexplainable misfortune.

Three weeks after the funeral, the sun finally tore through the dark clouds and the town's residents slowly stopped talking about the King's tragic disappearance. 

They avoided locking eyes with the missing posters, which was difficult since Betty made sure they were everywhere. They tried to forget such a thing ever happened in their perfect town.

But some people just couldn't forget.


	3. ONE

CHAPTER ONE  
°⋆∴☽°:۵≼

i. lost boys !

— A LOT OF STRANGE THINGS HAPPENED THAT SUMMER THAT WERE VERY DIFFICULT TO EXPLAIN. The first day of student's summer holidays seemed fine. They were out of school, the sun was warm on their skin and their pools were the perfect temperature, as were the milkshakes from Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe. It was all very ordinary.

Archie Andrews was working at his dad's business.

Jughead Jones spent most days in his favourite booth at Pop's, trying to figure out his writer's block.

Betty Cooper and Kevin Keller had planned on just chilling out most of the summer and maybe stop being so paranoid about two missing boys.

However, the first day of summer break would be particularly harsh for Riverdale's Sheriff Station.

The moment Sheriff Keller got that 911 call for a dead body, his blood went cold. Quickly rushing from the station, a million thoughts pounding angrily around his skull.

News travels fast in a small town like Riverdale. Soon, many people had fled to the outskirts of the woods to watch the yellow tape being set up.

Within the hour, news had spread about the body's identity.

And for the first time in two years, the King's family had some form of final closure.

Because the body found, beaten and broken, bloody and mutilated, had been none other than Vincent King.

He'd looked different, that was for sure. He'd developed a sharper, more square jawline over the two years and his chin was riddled with tiny scars and marks. Muscles were more pronounced, as if it was some way to show the passage of time. His eyes used to be so lively and warm. But now they were dead, unblinking and sunken as if he'd hadn't slept in months. His lips were red with dried blood and disastrously chapped, but for some strange reason the ends of his lips had been tilted slightly upwards. As if he'd been smiling during his last moments, which was a crazy thing to assume because he had a pink scar traveling down from just behind his ear, to just above the curve of his hip, long and thin, as if a blade had been dragged through his flesh. 

How could anyone be smiling after an event such as that?

He looked terrible.

He looked dead.

Which is something you never want in a dead body, for them to actually look dead. Because it makes it all the more difficult.

So much for forgetting paranoia.

So much for a peaceful summer.

— WORD TRAVELS FAST IN A SMALL TOWN. That wasn't new for Riverdale. In hours, everyone had heard of the dead King brother.

People mourned a young boy that had his life taken from him too soon, and the King's family grieved for a child they'd lost.

Unsurprisingly though, people were more concerned with the who rather than the how. Or more so, they were more concerned with the unidentifiable killer.

Sheriff Keller worked day and night, but even after Vincent King's autopsy, there wasn't enough to point them in a definitive direction.

So again, they're left wondering where the boy had been for two whole years.

Or why Jonathan King wasn't on a steel table next to his brother, with a tag on his toe.

Information about the autopsy was released, and the results were those of a horror movie.

He'd been beaten, carved into, partly blinded, starved, frozen, affected with different harmful chemicals, the list went on and on. There was barely a part of Vincent King's body that was left unscarred or unbruised. Which made his undead smile all the more confusing.

—AFTER THE RESULTS OF THE AUTOPSY WERE RELEASED, KEVIN KELLER AND BETTY COOPER DIDN'T LEAVE THE HOUSE. They stayed in Betty's room for days, moping and mourning, only leaving to go to the washroom.

Kevin observed people from Betty's window, just people that passed by, and tried to profile each one of them.

Could he have killed him?  
Could she have kidnaped them?

Then he'd turn his back for two seconds to grab one of the pieces of cheese Alice Cooper had brought up on a tray. After, he'd return to profiling people.

It really did seem like the whole town was on the edge of their seat, waiting for something to happen. It was like some sick movie theatre where the viewers were wide and starry eyed riverdale folk and popcorn were police reports, which they ingested with any new information they could.

And now it was only Jonathan's posters that smiled at them when they walked by.

His warm brown eyes seemed to follow every move they made, as if he wanted to jump out of the poster and reveal every secret of what had happened but couldn't.

Everyone hoped against hope that Jonathan King would return unharmed, but how likely was that?

And it was this summer tragedy, where Jughead Jones became an inspired writer.

The disappearance and death of one of Riverdale's very own Kings. It was like the childish beginning of a spooky campfire story.

Only this one was real.

Each event that Jughead wrote had actually happened.

As if people needed some sort of reminder.

— VINCENT KING'S BODY WAS RELEASED FROM POLICE CUSTODY AFTER A FEW DAYS. His coffin was dug up and reburied with him inside. Only a handful of people came to this reburrial. Those being the boy's friends and their families.

The undertaker did a good job, all things considered.

Vincent looked healthier. He looked happy almost, but after what the onlookers had really seen, it felt like some sort of lie.

Or at the very least, a kinder truth.

They paid their respects, said their condolences and whispered their goodbyes before his body was lowered into the ground in a shiny red-brown casket.

Afterwards, people left.

The Coopers were the first. Fred and Archie followed. Jughead stayed around for a while, refusing to look at either grave before sighing, bowing his head, then leaving. Rupert King lead his wife inside and brewed some tea.

And that left Kevin, who stared at the engraved headstone of Jonathan King. 

Thoughts ran through his mind at a mile a minute and he lost track of each one. 

He reminisced and wondered where his close friend could be. He had an internal fight with himself trying to think of different locations and suspects and reasons why. 

Each idea clashed viciously against his skull and felt like hammers to his temples, but he couldn't stop that internal battle.

Onlookers would only see a boy with tears escaping his eyes, sitting cross legged in the grass with his forehead against the cold marble of Jonathan King's dark headstone.

— IT SEEMED LIKE THE SUMMER WAS GOING TO BE MUCH MORE TROUBLESOME THAN SOME PEOPLE HAD HOPED. Vincent's confirmed death hit a hard home run against the town. No one had been prepared for it. No one wanted to believe it.

After everything the King's family and friends had experienced, it was clear that they needed a break.

But it appeared that the tragedy was far from over.


	4. TWO

CHAPTER TWO  
°⋆∴☽°:۵≼

i. ghost boys !

— IT WAS WARM THAT SUMMERTIME MORNING, when Johnathan King was found. Stumbling across the road, beaten and bloodied. Warm enough, in fact, that the thin grey t-shirt he was wearing was relatively acceptable. 

Yet he still shivered violently in the sunlight, squinting like a man finally seeing the day after a lifetime in darkness.

Right down the middle of the road, tripping over his own feet, hugging himself and muttering crazed whispers over his shoulder, trying to keep an eye out for something. Someone. Anything.

Until he finally fell, too weak to keep himself standing. He curled up into a ball on the bright yellow line in the centre of the pavement, groaning as he went.

This was how Sheriff Keller found him after the 911 call was placed. A ball of sadness and hurt.

Sadness and hurt.

Those are the words that could be used to describe Kevin Keller, who was with his father when he got the call for someone that looked peculiarly like Johnathan King.

Kevin couldn't possibly stay in the car like the Sheriff had told him to as they parked.

He darted out of the vehicle and ran to Johnathan's side, ignoring his father's pleas for him to get back in the car.

"Hey! Hey, Johnny, oh my god- you're alive." The boy rushed out as he dropped to his knees, trying to turn Johnny onto his back.

Johnathan coughed raggedly and squeezed his eyes shut, until he finally looked up.

"...Kevin?" His voice was broken and rasping, dry as a desert, but it sounded like him. It sounded like Jonathan.

His hair was longer, sure, and his face was tired and broken. His left eye puffed up making him nearly unrecognizable.

But Kevin always knew. He'd spent hours looking at that face, observing every inch and engraving it into his memory.

"Yeah! Yeah, it's me." Kevin wanted to cry as he looked over his old friend. Red smears and dirt covered every inch of him, he looked so... dead, for lack of better words.

Jonathan tried to lift his head up, "I'm-..." He coughed again, horrible and sick.

Kevin smiled sadly down at him, trying to encourage him to finish, letting him cushion his head on one of Kevin's hands.

"I'm... bleeding."

Kevin could barely hear the blaring sirens of paramedic vehicles arriving at the scene as he looked down at Jonathan's chest, where a deep scarlet colour was blooming across his already stained shirt.

"It's okay- Johnny, you're gonna be okay." Kevin muttered empty promises as one of his own hands fled to the other boy's chest, hovering over the dark red colour as if trying to will it away.

"Vincent- did Vincent... make- it out?" Jonathan asked, swallowing thickly and licking his lips, trying to ease at the cracked texture under his tongue.

Kevin didn't have the heart to answer. So instead, he smiled sadly and lowered his hand down gently on Jonathan's chest, putting slight pressure on the wound.

Johnathan threw his head back in a low whine as his eyes shone over, glistening with unshed tears.

"Oh god... oh god..." He cried.

A hand pressed against Kevin's, asking him to remove himself so they could take Johnathan away again.

"Move back, son." Sheriff Keller stood over Kevin and beckoned him away.

The tiniest pieces of rock were still stuck into the boy's face as they lifted him off the pavement and onto a stretcher to be taken to the hospital. 

They lifted his shirt to stuff tissue and gauze around the long, wide mark in the boy's chest, flowing, pouring out the life that rushed through his veins.

Kevin could see the scars and stitches that littered Jonathan's chest like constellations in the sky. Some looked vicious and angry, while others were thin with precision.

The boy's voice was still heard, crying out for his dead brother, even after they shut the doors.

Kevin is left looking after the boy as he was driven away, the sad darkness that had wrapped around his mind became a little brighter now that Jonathan King, staying very much alive, was a possibility.

For the Kellers, there were three things they knew with unwavering certainty:

One- Vincent King, the good boy of Riverdale, with a killer smile and kind heart, was buried six feet underground with one of the best headstones money could buy.

Two- Jonathan King, who everyone was sure would follow his brother into his very own casket, was alive. How, no one was sure.

Three- Kevin was left with a grim, cold reminder, of the state his old friend was in.

His hand chilled to the air and wind as he lifted his arm waist high, looking down on the red stain that dripped across his fingertips

How could it have ended up like this.

It felt like just the other day, Kevin was watching his best friend laugh and grin without a single care in the world.

Now he was broken. That boy was ripped apart and glued together again, time after time, day after wretched day.

Part of Kevin had nearly accepted, that Jonathan would remain a ghost in their dark town.

And watching the way the boy screamed and cried at the news of his deceased brother, Kevin thought maybe being a ghost was better than this life.

"They'll have to test the blood..," Kevin tuned back in to the situation with newfound sadness, listening to his father talk over the phone. "No! You idiot, not the one from the damn hole in his chest- figure out where the other stuff came from!"

Kevin was about to tune back out and allow his mind some peace to just exist for even a moment.

But then Sheriff Keller lowered his voice, and Kevin couldn't help but strain to hear.

"And maybe try testing the blood for Jason Blossom. Let me know if you find anything useful."

And now, another problem arose. Because Jason Blossom happened to be the (famously) murdered teen found on the bank of Sweetwater River.

Only a week before Jonathan's reappearance.

And if the Sheriff thought he had something to do with it, god help them all.


	5. THREE

CHAPTER THREE  
°⋆∴☽°:۵≼

i. he must have gone mad !

— AFTER WHAT HAD FELT LIKE A LIFETIME SPENT IN DARKNESS, Jonathan King could hardly keep his eyes open as they took minutes to adjust to the harsh white lighting in the room.

He'd never liked hospitals. Not when little eight year old him fell on his new scooter and slammed his chin against the pavement- making stitches a necessity. Or when Vincent burned his arm on a stove top and Johnny had to sit with him for hours while they fixed it. Even when Jonathan was accidentally tripped down a flight of stairs and broke his arm, the hospital had never been his favourite place.

Then again, Johnny thought maybe a simple broken bone or split chin would be better than the reality.

Anything could be better than this.

It had only been about three hours since they'd found the boy and the nurses were ever worried about him, not for his injuries but for his crazed muttering. The glances over his shoulder and long hard stares at certain places in the room.

He wasn't stable. Mentally, it was just the fact.

And when Kevin Keller, eager to see his old friend again, arrived at the hospital, he rushed to find Jonathan's room, Sheriff Keller not far behind.

"Johnny?" Kevin peeked in nervously, seeing the boy, weakly starring at a corner of the room.

He looked up when he heard Kevin's voice, and smiled slightly, "Hey, Skittles."

Kevin let out a small burst of laughter and stepped up next to the bed, "I've missed you so much. God- you have no idea."

Jonathan chuckled. "I missed you too."

Then a glint caught Kevin's eye near the blankets.

"They handcuffed you?" Kevin paused, uncertainty latched onto his voice and tugged it to a waver. It shook ever so slightly.

The metal clinked against the plastic bed as Jonathan held up the arm that was cuffed. He definitely couldn't lift it even a foot in the air.

Kevin sighed, noticing that Jonathan wasn't talking and was instead starring darkly at the metal around his wrist.

"They think you had something to do with Jason Blossom." Kevin explained.

"Blossom?" Jonathan muttered quietly. It seemed like he wasn't even listening anymore, as his stare moved to that same corner of the room.

"Yeah, Johnny, he's dead." Kevin glanced down, sitting on one of the unoccupied chairs. It was hard and wooden but not too unbearable. "It's just a coincidence that you showed up a week later with... well, with a boat load of blood on you."

Jonathan still didn't say anything, as his arm fell back to the sheets heavily.

"They think..." Kevin trailed off, reaching forward and placing a hand on his old friend's arm. "They think you killed him."

Jonathan's eyes flickered to the door, where Sheriff Keller was stood, talking with one of the nurses.

"He's dead." He said, certainly.

"Yeah." Kevin sighed. He was quiet for a moment before he let out a small, dry laugh. "But it's not like we were Jason's biggest fans." 

Jonathan shook his head, looking at the sheets and squeezing them between his fingers.

"No." He said. "Not him." His breathing became a bit laboured and his hands shook.

"He's dead." Jonathan glanced from the corner of the room, to a space next to his bed. "He's dead because of me."

Kevin's blood ran cold. 

"Who, Johnny?" Kevin pressed. His hand melted more against Jonathan's arm, leaning forward in his chair.

Jonathan still didn't look at him, it seemed like he couldn't even hear Kevin's voice.

"I did this." He sobbed. "I did this." It became a chant as he threw his head back against his pillows.

"Jonathan, what do you mean?" Kevin let go of his old friend's arm, sitting stiff.

Jonathan shook and cried. He sat up as much as he could with his hand cuffed to the bed and his chest wound still fresh, beginning to yell at the corner of the room.

"No!" He whimpered. "No, you can't just say that!"

Kevin stood from his seat as a nurse, the same nurse who was talking with his father, came in and tried to calm Jonathan down from his hysteria.

"No- it was our fault! He shouldn't have died!" Jonathan cried.

Sheriff Keller held an arm across his son's chest and beckoned him away to no avail.

"Who, Johnny? Who shouldn't have died?" 

Jonathan continued to ignore him, still spiralling and spasming as another nurse came in to help hold him against the mattress.

"Then how did we make it out, huh? What makes us so special?" Jonathan yelled- almost screamed at that same corner, staring as if someone was really standing there.

Kevin glanced over to see just the blank wall, and his hope sunk even further into his chest.

"Stop saying that!" Jonathan kept arguing. "Stop it!"

He was like a child trying to put his hands to his ears.

Kevin felt fear seep into his bones gripping them in cold, clammy, uncomfortable hands and making them shake in the freezing temperature.

He was terrified.

It was a common feeling for him. He'd lived most of his life in terror. 

Terror that he would never see Jonathan King ever again.

But now it was a new kind of terror. Because now that Jonathan was back, he was terrified that his old friend would never be the same.

So he fell silent, allowing his father to drag him out of the room as he watched one of the nurses inject a needle into Jonathan's bloodstream, instantly making him relax into the pillows with a soft groan.

"God, Vincent... Vincent..." Were his final whispered words as he fell unconscious, allowing whatever drug they pumped him with to pull him deeper into his own mind.

Maybe it was for the better.

Maybe it was for the worse.


	6. FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR  
°⋆∴☽°:۵≼

i. he needs them !

— THE WORLD SEEMED JUST A BIT LIGHTER THAT DAY. The day that the quiet town of Riverdale found out about the magically reappearing King brother. Whispers of his existence flooded the halls of Riverdale high, gathering into a tidal wave of rumours and lies.

When Kevin found Betty at her locker, she hugged him so tightly it almost hurt and smiled brightly, almost laughing at the news. Excitedly rushing to rip missing posters off the walls and making a show of tossing them in the trash.

He's back!

He's home!

Kevin tried to buy into her excitement, as he collected the missing poster's staples in his hand for her.

But the more he thought about it, about Johnny, he thought about the way Johnny had acted during his hospital visit, as if he'd been talking to some invisible person.

It was unsettling to think about, but Kevin couldn't help remembering the way Johnathan shot up and yelled at the wall about his feeling of guilt for his dead brother.

It was weird. To see Johnny spiral so much in such little time. To have seen him bleeding out in the middle of the road, staining the sharp yellow line.

Kevin couldn't help but just follow after Betty quietly, giving small smiles here and there as his mind was wandering between the simple yet heartbreaking ideas of what happened to his best friend?

Even Cheryl Blossom had a small smile on her face when they passed by each other in the halls. She didn't make some snide comment about Betty's shoes, or the way Kevin's hair looked slightly messier than his usual clean brushed dark locks.

Her own brother was dead, but now, with Jonathan back, she didn't feel quite so alone in the experience.

The King brothers had a place in all their hearts. When Vincent's death hit the town, no one spoke about anything else for days. People broke down at the news.

Even after Jason Blossom's body was found, there were barely any uttered words about him. As if the King's disappearance was more interesting type of an unsolvable mystery.

Now, Jonathan's re emergence from the void of unknown, was somehow putting them back together again.

Though Kevin kept his head down and those haunting thoughts about Johnny to himself, he noticed that Jughead Jones was a few short bursts away from a grin, Archie was laughing and looking fondly at one of the missing posters he'd taken down to help Betty. Betty was practically skipping to every lesson.

So much tragedy, brought back together by him.

And he probably had no idea.

Veronica Lodge was new in the school- or more so in the town. She had noticed the missing posters before, had even made a comment about how cute the kid was. But she couldn't really understand why people were so obsessed with him.

Even now that he'd come back, she was a little indifferent.

"So he's been gone for a few years and he just shows up out of nowhere completely alive?" She asks, chewing on a fry as they eat lunch at a picnic table outside. 

"But his brother is dead." She pointed with a different fry, waving it around to emphasize her speech.

Betty nodded, the blond curls in her high ponytail bouncing with movement.

"Interesting." Veronica shrugged.

Kevin could tell she was judging Jonathan a little. Just that small over the shoulder glance as she shrugged told him that she believed Johnny might have killed his brother.

After the hospital visit Kevin had sat through, he wouldn't have been so quick to disagree. But they got blood samples back and most- if not all of it belonged to Johnny.

Betty noticed the look too, and sat forward in her seat, "Maybe we should go visit him! You could meet him yourself."

Kevin's eyes widened at the idea, not wanting Betty to see him the way he himself had.

As if by some otherworldly coincidence, Kevin's phone went off with a typical ringtone.

And looking down at the contact name, his eyes met 'The King's Queen'.

Jonathan's mother.

The contact had been a joke, one that the woman had made herself, but in this moment Kevin's blood turned to ice and he froze.

"Oh! There's Minnie now, ask her if we can come visit after school!" Betty shook with happiness, glancing at Veronica.

Kevin swallowed his fear and answered the phone.

"Hello?" He asked, trying to push the wavering down and settle his stomach.

"Kevin, hello dear." Minnie sounded tired, but nothing more.

Kevin sighed slightly, knowing that Minnie would have told him immediately if something had happened to Johnny.

"Hey- Hi Min, how are you?" Kevin stumbled, now having no idea why she called.

"I'm well, thank you. Listen, honey, I was just calling to let you know what Johnny is doing a lot better today. I know you visited him during an episode and I just wanted to let you know he's okay." The woman spoke with a slight shimmer of sorrow, knowing that her son might as well have gone completely mad.

"This doesn't mean it's gone." She continued. "We had someone take a look at him and he's supposedly adopted a few personalities into his mind-" she sighed heavily and paused. "It's difficult to explain..."

Kevin shook his head, before realizing how stupid that move was and he spoke out loud, "No, Minnie it's okay-"

"They think-" She almost sobbed. "They think there were others with them. My boys, the doctors think they weren't the only ones taken and that Johnny has adopted the personalities-..." she took wavering breathes and Kevin's hands shook. "Of these other kids who died."

Kevin was quiet for a moment, "How does that work?"

"I don't know, sweetie, I just think it's a coping thing- he thinks they made it out with him but-..." Minnie inhaled sharply, trying to gather her thoughts.

Minnie King had always been an empathetic and emotional person. These 'other kids'? She cried for them. She knelt to the ground and weeped imagining the horrors they had to face, imagining their parents faces when they'd finally receive the news.

And she hated feeling so thankful that at least one of her sons made it out.

Kevin knew she needed a bit of time to herself, but looked up at Betty's eager face.

"Can he have visitors?" Kevin whispered into the phone.

Minnie gathered herself for one final sentence, "Just don't try and force them away... he needs them right now."

Kevin's heart broke as she hung up the phone, the ringing dial becoming a white noise for his thoughts.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, it’s Luna (:
> 
> So I’m still new to ao3 and I’m still a bit confused as to how the function/set up of this site goes but someone suggested I shouldn’t publish a story all at once, so I’m gonna probably publish once a day until this fic is done (there’s like 15 chapters or something, it’s not too much)— but this whole account is more just me experimenting with different platforms to be entirely honest. I’m still a wattpader at heart (:
> 
> With that being said, I’m also gonna clarify that this fic doesn’t really follow the Riverdale storyline because— I didn’t wanna watch Riverdale again— so this fic is more my own plot than anything
> 
> Also I wrote this around the time Trisha was bashing the DID community, especially dissociaDID- and I try using my writing to bring informed attention to those kinds of things- so there is a character with DID in here— please let me know if the information surrounding the disorder is wrong or misrepresented, and it will be changed. 
> 
> okay I’ve talked for long enough, uhhh enjoy this mess I suppose (:


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